Intellectual Property Team Named Among Law360 Practice Groups of the Year

Articles & Press | Awards

January 26, 2018 - Hughes Hubbard’s IP Litigation team has been named an “Intellectual Property Group of the Year” by Law360.

Law360’s Practice Group of the Year awards honor firms behind the litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year.

In a Jan. 26 profile, Law360 highlighted HHR’s Supreme Court win in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC¸ a decision which overruled decades of lower court precedent and held that for purposes of the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), a domestic corporate defendant “resides” only in its state of incorporation. The TC Heartland decision has brought about a significant shift in where civil actions for alleged patent infringement are brought in the United States today, restoring a legal environment that existed between 1897 and 1990.

Jim Dabney, co-chair of the IP group, told Law360 that the TC Heartland case illustrates what “distinguishes the Hughes Hubbard approach to the practice of patent law.”

“We have schooled ourselves in [patent] law not only as it existed in the last 35 years, but as it existed in the last 200 years,” he said. “That perspective comes with insights that can profitably be put in service, and I think the TC Heartland cases are just an example of that.”

In addition to acting as arguing counsel for TC Heartland in the Supreme Court, Dabney was also lead counsel for TC Heartland in both lower courts and in parallel inter partes review proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Stephen Rabinowitz, co-chair of the IP group, told Law360 that the firm’s victories in cases like TC Heartland “illustrate the innovative approach” that HHR takes to patent litigation.